At 8.50pm on March 21st, 2006, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey sent his first Tweet to start the microblogging service which currently defines all others.
Along with Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and tens of million people worldwide, Twitter has grown into one the most notable social networks on the planet. Recent stats have pegged online visits at 75 million, content at 1.2 billion tweets per month, and mobile usage up 347% since 2009 with 4.7 million mobile users in January 2010.
We’ve seen Tweets from space and from the American President. Brands have used it to communicate in different ways, and to make money. And as a news and information source, first-hand accounts have included plane crashes, the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, and natural disasters including Haiti and numerous earthquakes around the world.
American forst fires gave rise to the use of hashtags, whilst users also began the now widespread practice of @ messages. Customs have become established such as #followfriday, a huge ecosystem of third-party clients and developers have grown, and third party advertising systems have been allowing users to monetise their content.
Individual users now have millions of followers and have posted tens of thousands of messages.
For a more indepth look at the start of Twitter, check out this post from co-creator Dom Sagolla – How Twitter Was Born. Or check out this post from Jack Dorsey on Flickr.
Got any plans to celebrate #twitterday ?